**Source: PSS vol. 33**

This polemic dates to 1873. Marx and Engels contributed articles against the Proudhonists to a collection, and only in 1913 did these articles appear in German translation in the *Neue Zeit*.

"... If the political struggle of the working class," wrote Marx, mocking the anarchists with their negation of politics, "assumes revolutionary forms, if the workers put their revolutionary dictatorship in place of the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie, then they commit a terrible crime against principles, for in order to satisfy their wretched, crude daily needs, in order to break the resistance of the bourgeoisie, the workers impart to the state a revolutionary and transitory form, instead of laying down their arms and abolishing the state..." (*Neue Zeit*, 1913-1914, vol. 32, no. 1, p. 40)

This—against what kind of "abolition" of the state did Marx rise up exclusively, refuting the anarchists! Not at all against the fact that the state will disappear with the disappearance of classes or be abolished with their abolition, but against the workers renouncing the use of arms, against renouncing organized violence—that is, the state that ought to serve the aim: "to break the resistance of the bourgeoisie."

Marx deliberately emphasizes—so that the true meaning of his struggle against anarchism should not be distorted—the "revolutionary and transitory form" of the state necessary for the proletariat. The proletariat needs the state only temporarily. We do not at all diverge from the anarchists on the question of the abolition of the state as a goal. We assert that to achieve this goal, temporary utilization of the instruments, means, and methods of state power against the exploiters is necessary—just as the temporary dictatorship of the oppressed class is necessary for the destruction of classes. Marx poses the question in the sharpest and clearest manner against the anarchists: in overthrowing the yoke of capitalists, should the workers "lay down their arms" or use them against the capitalists, in order to break their resistance? And the systematic use of arms by one class—